


Angels Cuddle With Their Wings

by Huggle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Protective Castiel, Wing cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 09:52:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6653140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the only comfort Castiel could offer.</p>
<p>Now he can't even offer that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angels Cuddle With Their Wings

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt meme ages ago, hence the lack of a proper title.
> 
> Set during S4 and S5.

He doesn’t know why he can even feel it any more – his heart’s been torn out of his chest and stomped on so many fucking times he should be numb. But watching his mom cradle his dad’s prone form, seeing the pain in her eyes as she looks at her own father’s corpse.... 

Dean swallows down the hurt, and steels himself. He knows what he needs to know, understands why Cas brought him back here. For a moment, the grief is too much even for his resolve, but then it lifts suddenly – not entirely, but enough that he can breathe without feeling like his chest is about to cave in.

He turns when Cas rests a hand on his shoulder, sees the look of understanding on Castiel’s face, but he doesn’t think anything more about it.

~~

Dean doesn’t want him to go far and Sam gets that, gets that Dean needs to have Sam close so he knows that Sam’s ok, and he’s ok, and he’s out of Hell.

But Sam can’t stay in the room forever. He needs to breathe, to know that if he goes out for a walk, Dean’ll be there when he returns and it’s not some kind of fucked up nightmare.

He gets maybe a hundred yards, out into the scrub at the back of the parking lot, when his knees buckle and everything else gives out too like a flimsy house of cards.

Sam covers his mouth with his hands because he knows once he starts, he won’t stop and he’ll be loud enough to bring Dean running, maybe with a shotgun. This is one time that will only make things worse. He can’t have Dean here for this.

He sobs through his fingers, not sure how he’s kept it in this long. Maybe, he thinks, maybe because before he had vengeance to focus on and the desperate hunt for ways to get his brother back. Now, Dean’s safe – maybe not whole but alive and not burning in the fires of Hell, subject to torments that Sam is pretty sure were worse than anything his traumatised imagination could come up with.

He needs to let it out.

In the end, spent and shaking, he collapses onto his side in the dirt, content to lie there until he has no choice but to get up. He feels suddenly warm, like something invisible has settled over him. It’s the release, he knows. Finally getting rid of what he’s been carrying, the horror and helplessness of watching Dean torn apart by hellhounds, seeing the emptiness in Dean’s eyes as he’d stood over his big brother’s lifeless body. Trying and failing and trying again to find anything that would deal with him for Dean’s return.

But something seems to settle in the place of all that pain, and he wraps his arms around his chest, trying to hold onto it like it’s a physical thing. His fingers brush something, soft and light, and then it’s gone, but he can get up now.

Looking around once, seeing nothing but cars and dirt and prickly bushes, he sweeps his hair back from his face and starts back to the motel room, determined to wash his face and clean up before Dean awakes.

~~

It’s almost time. Cas winces as he steps down from the porch, muscles and bones and every part of him complaining. He wants more painkillers and perhaps some liquor and a soft bed. 

He wants more to be able to stretch his wings out again and wrap them around Sam and Dean, keep them there safe and sound and insulated from this existence that has caused them – and now him – so much pain.

He watches them standing by the car, preparing to say goodbyes now that they might not be able to later. He hopes there’s no need, but the odds of any of them surviving this are slim. The most likely outcome is Lucifer taking Sam, Dean dying at his hands, and then Castiel himself. Then the world will burn.

Before he can stop himself, he crosses the yard, and wraps his arms around both brothers.

“Whatever happens,” he promises them. “It will not have been for nothing. We will see each other again.”

They lean into him, hug him back, and Cas realises that human touch too can bring comfort and strength.

He just hopes it’s enough.


End file.
